Chicago Stadium Goes Down

Bobby Hull rifled pucks at unseen-before speeds during his days with the Chicago Blackhawks, and the fans bellowed.

Yesterday, a wrecking ball dangled for momentum, seemed to measure its target and then with a loud thud pulverized one of the ancient walls. Bricks scattered, windows shattered and dust rose to the sky.

A small crowd booed.

Chicago Stadium, where Franklin Roosevelt twice accepted his party's nomination, where Elvis rocked, where Sinatra crooned, where the two real Rockys -- Graziano and Marciano -- fought, as did Ali and Louis, began to crumble.

William Wirtz didn't want to watch. But he just had to venture out into the cool morning air and see the beginning of the end for his beloved Chicago Stadium, a building that had been in his family since 1936.

"I said I wouldn't be here, but I wanted to. It's like going through a wake but it has to be," an emotional Wirtz said, choking back tears.

There were circuses, track meets, bike races and skating exhibitions.

Just debris and a crashing of ball against wall.

The sound of progress.

The stadium, a landmark building in a city know for famous sports venues, has been passed by.

"It just could not survive 2000 and beyond," Wirtz said.

The stadium cost only $6 million to build in 1929. Where it stood will be a parking lot to serve its state-of-the-art successor, the $176 million United Center that sits across the street replete with revenue-generating luxury suites.

The United Center, which opened this fall, just doesn't have the same feel, the same atmosphere, the same closeness to the action.

"It's sad when everybody else in the NHL says it's the best stadium in the league and it's being torn down," said Dennis Slater, 35, who began going to the stadium as a child to watch hockey.

"You could still have Ice Capades here. It's still better for concerts than that place across the street. I'm glad my kids got to go in before they destroyed it, that's why I'm here getting pictures. It's a bunch of bull. It's a money game. They're putting up a parking lot."

Some of those watching fetched souvenir bricks.

Anticipating the souvenir seekers, the Blackhawks and Bulls, meanwhile, issued a press release promising season ticket holders a complimentary brick and also promoting the sale of stadium memorabilia to the public in a United Center store.

The demolition is expected to be completed by mid-May, said James L. Werner, a vice president for U.S. Dismantlement Corp. Because of its steel and concrete structure, the building was not a candidate to be leveled quickly with dynamite, he said. The wrecking ball was also the cheaper choice for destruction, he added.

The stadium, known as one of the loudest sports arenas in the country, was called "The Madhouse on Madison," the street on which it sat on Chicago's near West Side.

One fan held up a sign in tribute:

"The Old Barn, the Sistine Chapel of Sports. Thanks For the Memories."